


In A Different Light

by HenryMercury



Category: The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: Dionysus' party, Experimentation, F/F, Issue #8, Questioning Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8028622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: "I prefer guys," says Amaterasu, when Laura and Sakhmet are done dancing and Laura finds herself at the edge of the crowd again. "I'm so boring."Laura knows the tilt of her head, the tone of her voice—knows when someone wants to be told that no, that's not true."The last thing you are is boring," she replies. It's not just that she's swimming in neon colour and the inimitable high of Dionysus' influence. She'd say this to Amaterasu stone cold sober. It would never be a lie.





	In A Different Light

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Laura likes Amaterasu a bunch more than I do.  
> 2\. So many potential sun-based titles. One working title was "The Sun Goes Down", because I am a sinner, but it ended up that that didn't match the actual content of the fic. Sadly. "The Sun Gets Down", perhaps.

"I prefer guys," says Amaterasu, when Laura and Sakhmet are done dancing and Laura finds herself at the edge of the crowd again. "I'm _so_ boring."

Laura knows the tilt of her head, the tone of her voice—knows when someone wants to be told that _no, that's not true_.

"The last thing you are is boring," she replies.

It's not just that she's swimming in neon colour and the inimitable high of Dionysus' influence. She'd say this to Amaterasu stone cold sober. It would never be a lie.

"You don't have to say that," the goddess replies.

"I do, because it's so true I can't stand for anything else," Laura tells her. She puts a hand on Amaterasu's shoulder. The electricity that's running through the whole room forms a feedback loop between the two of them. Every second of it feels like an eternity of deep eye contact.

Eye contact with Amaterasu is, at the best of times, like looking into the sun. The high adds to the one Dionysus is delivering, and Laura's reminded of how she felt standing in the audience while the goddess was on stage, back before Luci came and introduced herself and all this really began. She's not performing now, but she's looking at Laura with intense feeling—brows raised a little over widened eyes, lips parted—and that's no small thing.

Amaterasu raises her own hand and at first Laura thinks she's going to return the gesture by laying it on her shoulder, but instead it comes to cup her neck, the thumb pressed gently to her jawbone.

It occurs to Laura suddenly—so suddenly and with such clarity and urgency that she wonders whether it's her idea at all, or one from the hive mind, maybe even Amaterasu herself—that she's only answered to one half of the goddess' statement.

Laura remembers how it was when she first considered that she might not only be into guys. How strange it felt to find that inside herself, despite having always said that people should be free to want whoever they wanted. The strangeness of it abruptly not being abstract anymore. She remembers how, at first, it felt like someone needed to confirm the possibility of it. To make the suggestion in order to validate her first step. It hadn't taken her long to get past that stage, but she can see how someone more cautious, more prone to uncertainty, might end up stuck there.

Laura wonders whether maybe that's what's going on here.

"You know," she begins, "just because you _prefer_ guys doesn't mean can never be attracted to anyone else. You'll never be boring either way, but if you feel like you're missing something there's a simple solution."

"What?"

Laura can't tell whether Amaterasu is asking for the solution or for an explanation of why Laura's saying this in the first place, but having already started Laura decides to press on. "Your job is to inspire people to live their lives to the fullest, right?" she asks.

"Yes." This, Amaterasu is sure of.

"So shouldn't you do that by living yours to the fullest too? That's what the pantheon all do; living in limited time should mean living without regrets. Why not try anything and everything? Right?"

Amaterasu doesn't look totally convinced, but she's listening. Listening and biting the inside edge of her lip adorably.

"It just seems... it can't really be that simple. To _know_ , you know? What if I do something and it turns out it's not me at all? That I've _lied_. People always hate it when—"

"Hey," Laura stops her. "What do people do when they want to know what the truth is?"

Amaterasu's frowning like the kid who always does her homework and is slammed with a pop quiz the one time she forgets to.

Laura smiles easily at her, and answers her own question in the face of the goddess' hesitance: "They _go find out_. Scientists start with a hypothesis and then they test it to see if it holds up."

"You're nice." Amaterasu smiles, and Laura melts under it. "I'm glad Luci had someone nice."

Laura takes the opening she's been given and asks, "So you and Luci never...?"

She thinks the sentence, half-spoken half-suggested, should hurt more to say than it does, what with the memory of all that she and the devil did and never did together. It doesn't feel _good_ , it's just swept along with all the other neutral things in the sea of energy. It doesn't quicken her pulse—right now, only the dancefloor god has that power.

"Oh, no, never," Amaterasu answers quickly. There's a rush of brightness in her face, but it's hard to tell a blush from her usual colours from the flashing spinning lights of the rave. "I mean, she used to joke about it, but I always knew that was what it was—joking. I think she liked that I wanted to be around her for something other than... that. I think it confused her a bit, but she liked it."

Laura swallows her accusations about just how much Luci's best friend was there for her when she was locked up, left to either rot or self-destruct. That blame is not for right now, and it's probably not for someone as openly regretful as Amaterasu at all. Laura thinks of all the things she'd have done differently if she'd known—if she'd only _believed_ —that it really wasn't going to be okay for Lucifer, and knows Amaterasu's list must be even longer.

"You're nice too," she says instead. "I think you're so nice you're afraid to disappoint anybody. What would you do tonight, if you didn't have to explain yourself to anybody?"

It's like Laura can feel Amaterasu thinking. She can feel it as the goddess remembers the hand still on the side of Laura's face, thinks she should take it away, decides she doesn't want to. Maybe Laura's making that up and she can't read anybody's mind at all tonight, she's just high enough to believe she can. But then Amaterasu dives forward and presses her mouth against Laura's, catching just the edge of her lips before darting back away. Laura wonders if the kiss was even enough to transfer any of that red lipstick.

"I'm sorry, I just thought that—" Amaterasu's saying, but Laura holds her finger to the goddess' lips to stop her.

"No," she says. "Don't explain yourself, remember?—I already know what you're doing anyway. Just tell me this: did you like that?"

Amaterasu nods slowly. "I—I think so. It's hard to say. It wasn't exactly—"

"Would you like to try it again?"

"I think— yes. I would like that."

This time Laura helps, closing at least half the space between them. She makes sure her lips meet Amaterasu's head-on. If sparks fly for ordinary kisses then what Laura's feeling now is a full-blown electrical fire, a wildfire, an apocalypse, a supernova. She feels a gasp against her mouth and knows Amaterasu is feeling at least some of it too.

The hand from Laura's jaw slides back to run over the shaved side of her head, and Amaterasu's other arm wraps around her, pulls her forward, embraces her like there's nothing else in the world even as dozens of other consciences dance around them and with them and through them. It's a paradoxical pleasure, letting everything in at the same time as shutting it out. Communing with two gods, unstoppable force and immovable object at once.

For her part, Laura runs fingers through long red hair the way she's secretly daydreamed of doing since she saw Amaterasu's first ever interview. She tries to move the kiss slowly forward, each bit of extra pressure asking but not demanding, and finds herself in danger of being left behind. The energy surrounding her flares from warm to hot and heady and dizzying as sunstroke, and Laura recognises the feeling of playing with fire, of chasing the blaze and willingly stepping in.

She almost doesn't realise that they've broken apart until Amaterasu says, "I liked that a lot."

Laura—who thinks her heart _must_ be pounding even faster and harder than the rhythm Dionysus has set at this point—can't think of anything to say. Even if she could she feels like she'll never catch her breath. She just nods, and feels a grin spreading over her face, and lets her hand stroke softly through that red hair again, ever-admiring.

"Do you think, maybe..." Amaterasu trails off for a moment, but prompts herself to continue with a meaningful look at Laura. Laura's heart practically glitches with pride. "Let's dance."

"Definitely," Laura manages, and then Amaterasu's pulling her into the fray with a strong, gentle hand.

Laura's familiar with the graceful twirls of Amaterasu's dancing, but watching is the furthest thing in the world from actually being swept up in them, held inevitably close as if by gravity, like she's a planet in orbit.

"Definitely not boring."

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/).


End file.
